A Weird Place

This post is a little odd, mostly since it’s not just for me and it’s designed to be read by other (specific) people. Almost like a broadcast. You see little children, the internet is a strange and dangerous place (just look for chicks and cups in Google) and sometimes an email that is all alone in the big wide virtual world will lose its way, and become lost. Scared and lost and lonely it will turn first to petty crime, just to get by. Then it will join a gang and become a low level enforcer and thug before turning to dealing drugs and pimping. Soon enough, it’s just another statistic. Another email lost and with no place in this society.

Oh, and Cox sometimes eats them. That happens too.

Anyhow, the email that I’m trying to send (and is game related) is this:

“Here is the animation list that I promised to give you. For each item I’ve also given the total frames it currently has. This can obviously be different if you’d like, but in that case more would be better if at all possible.We need:Running Animation (11 frames) Left and Right.Ducking Animation (1 frame) LRStanding Animation (1 frame) LRJumping Animation (5 frames) LRFlip Animation (4 frames) LRFalling Animation (1 frame) LR“Doomed” Animation (1 frame) LR – In the game if you fall from a certain height the fall will kill you. This animation is what plays when you have fallen further than that. I’ll eventually also add a little yell of something with it.Wall Jump Animation (1 frame) LR – This is the animation that plays when you jump into a wall. Ground Hit Animation (1 frame) LR – This is a hard landing that doesn’t kill you.Hurt Animation (1 frame) LR – the animation that plays when an enemy hits the character.En Guarde Animation (1 frame) LR – the default combat animationAttack Animation (4 frames) LRHigh Dodge (5 frames) LR – The defense against a high attack. Like a block or a duck under it. Low Dodge (5 frames) LR – The defense against a low attack. Like a block or a hop over it.Parry Animations (1 frame) LR Step Back Animation (1 frame) LR – a step back while fighting Sword Draw (3 frames) LR – The pull the sword out animationSword Put Away (3 frames) LR – The put the sword away animation -For the dodges, what I would really like are variations of the block. So you may hop one time, but block another. Of course, this is all candy at the end if there is any extra time. Otherwise just 1 is great.

We also need enemy animations. Almost all of them currently have 1 frame, but we obviously need more for almost all of them:High Attack (4 frames) LRLow Attack (4 frames) LRHit (1 frame) LRDead (1 frame) LRIn Combat (1 frame) LRPatrolling (1 frame) LRRunning LR – I added a vision system. So now an enemy will only run at you and attack you if he can see you. So if it has its back to you or you are not in its line of sight it will keep patrolling. In combat is after it has seen you and is close (it’s their En Guarde Stance). The “Running” animation for the enemies is once they have seen you they run at you to attack.Throw (1 frame) LR – When you run into an enemy, it will grab you and throw you. You may also need to draw the animations with both the Thief and the enemy in the same animation.

That’s perfectly okay and may be easier than trying to get the animations to sync up. …and that’s it really. before you do any though, just send over some final sketches / models and we can make sure we are happy with the designs. That way you won’t have to redo anything if you change your mind on stuff. =D

What else? Hmm, when you do the renders make sure the images are .PNG format. Paint Shop Pro should be able to make those. .BMP is also okay. Just no Jpegs since they do some seriously dumb crap to, well, everything.

Also, for the backgrounds of the renders, make sure that they are all the same color. Pick something stupid like magenta or something like that. Then I can set the graphics to not display that color.

Anyway, if you have any questions, let me know.“

-For the project, I have smashing good news (yes I used the word “smashing” with italics even). I’ve convinced another of my classmates to join the intrepid crew of the USS Almost Impossible. So now I have a new Texture / Background artist. Effectively they will be doing what I was going to be doing as far as texturing and creating the background art for the game. The really key bit is that they will be doing it, not me, so that frees me up to do the other things that really need doing on the project. So that’s, well, really cool and Graphic Designer Eric breathes a sign of relief.

-Yes I know, too much use of italics again. But dammit, it’s right there with “Ctrl + I” just asking for it. I think I have a problem.